island_experimentfandomcom-20200213-history
Equivalent Cost
Equivalent Cost (EC) reflects the total material and time cost of a certain product or action. The purpose of EC is to unify different units used for different parameters for comparison, discussion and development of advanced strategies (especially making decisions of deleting orders). Time in seconds (s) is chosen as the standard unit of EC. Understanding Equivalent Cost Equivalent Cost is best understood as price. The bigger the EC is, the rarer and more valuable the material is. It could be roughly interpreted as the total time required to make a certain move with 1 worker. If you have 4 workers, dividing the EC by 4 gives an estimate. Note that Gold requires no worker to produce. This is why EC can only estimate their work time. Example To build a Rat Trap you need 990 , 30 , 10 , 25 , 25 and 9 minutes. With reference to the table below, the EC of this construction is 990*1.2+30*71+10*120+25*98+25*115+9*60 = 10383 (s). Here are a few ways to interpret this number: 1. The price of this construction is 10383 (whatever the currency is) or 8653 (10383/1.2). 2. One worker will need 10383 seconds, or 2.88 hours to finish this construction from scratch, including collecting money from houses, gathering bamboo, producing wood and clay, growing food to make shovels, going into caves for iron ore, etc. 3. Four workers will need 2596 seconds (10383/4), or 43 minutes to finish this construction from scratch. (It will actually take longer due to the assumptions made.) 4. The scale of construction is equivalent to producing 231 (10383/45) or 1.3 (10383/7834). Assumptions 1. No workers stand idle within that time. 2. No extra resources are made. It is impossible to produce exactly 30 from Sawmill but that has been assumed in calculations. To prevent this, change to 36 and calculate again. 3. Even work division is possible. This implies that in the end, all workers finish work at the same time. 4. No bonuses are active. For example, once you get the pet collection that doubles Crystal production, this will reduce the cost of various crystals by 1/2; items that use those crystals will also go down in price, usually by a smaller amount. List of Equivalent Costs Although figures are shown are mostly rounded off to the nearest integer, numbers used in calculations are exact. While you are encouraged to check for errors, please remember not to use rounded values in any step. Basic Exchange Rate Basic Exchange Rate relates time with materials and therefore concerns Gold and time only. The exchange rate of Gold to time is 6:5, or 5 Gold equals 6s. Working Total income is 49.975 per 1m or 0.833 (1999/2400) per 1s. For simplicity, this rate is approximated to 5 Gold per 6s (5/6 or 2000/2400 per 1s). Assumptions 1. Maximum reliable income. Players have all houses and Megusta Idol built and upgraded to level 4, and collect whenever possible. 2. Negligible income from SONAR. It gives 48 gold on each discovery but average frequency is unknown. If known, it should be included to improve this model. 3. Ignores special objects besides Megusta Idol that could generate some coins. These would be the ones purchased with stamps, Friendship Coins, Doubloons, Native Coins, Karma Luck Coins, or given as occasional prizes for timed events. Materials with Variable Costs Some materials can be produced with different costs. This includes Food, Wood, Stone, Clay, Water, Irite, Fish, Rat Skin, Gold Bar, Red Berries, Blue Berries, Grass, Iron Ore, Iron Bar, etc. There are a few principles applied to determine their ECs. Renewable over Exhaustible The renewable forms of production are taken instead of exhaustible forms. For example: 1. The EC of Wood is determined from Sawmill production only because it is renewable. Dried-Up Trees, Rusty Rails, Roadblocks, Windbreaks, Thorns, etc. are exhaustible and therefore neglected. 2. The cost of Grass and Berries are taken as 2 Food as it is the cost of harvesting the inexhaustible plants, even though it may cost 1-4 Food elsewhere. Average Rate at Buildings Rates are averaged if multiple rates are offered at a building. In other words, it is assumed that each option is used with equal frequency. Individual EC for each option is available. This applies to Vegetable Patch and Field Kitchen, Sawmill, Stone Quarry, Clay Quarry, Well, Converter, Fishing Net, Rat Trap and Autoclave. For example: 1. In Sawmill, level 1, 2, 3 and 4 productions have ECs of 33, 71, 77 and 103 per . The arithmetic mean (average) 71 is taken to be the EC of . 2. Using the same approach, Vegetable Patch has an EC of 44.75 and Field Kitchen has an EC of 45.53 per . Vegetable Patch is given the weight of 3 as the build limit is 3 and Field Kitchen, 1, to obtain the weighted mean 44.94 as the EC of . Production from Caves Only Iron Ore, Runes and Obsidian are considered products of Caves. Side products (materials that can also be obtained outside in a renewable way) such as Stone, Water and Food, although renewable, are not used in calculations. Iron Ore production from caves is not constant and a reliable approximation has not been established yet. This model currently uses a conservative rate of 1 shovel to 2.5 Iron Ore to 2.5 seconds. Targeted mining strategy is assumed so that if possible, player avoids digging piles without Runes in Mysterious Cave and those without Obsidian in Obsidian Cave. In each of these 2 caves, it is supposed that 3 flowers are in the way and must be removed. Shovels used on them are wasted and return nothing. The frequency of visiting Dark Cave to Mysterious Cave to Obsidian Cave is taken to be 7:2:1. Working Rewriting based on shovel usage, in a certain recurring period of time, EC of each material is obtained by dividing Total EC by Output. Other Assumptions 1. Every option at buildings are unlocked, i.e. all buildings are at level 4. 2. Loot from flying birds and moles are neglected. 3. Cost of construction is neglected. Detailed Workings